Curly Bill and Ringo

by Holt, Van

  Jackpot shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “I ain’t looking at a damn thing.”

  “I think he means you ain’t nothing,” Cash said, and he seemed to be enjoying it a little himself.

  “I don’t give a damn what he thinks. His opinion don’t count.”

  “I’ll still be here when you’re gone,” Jackpot said.

  Curly scowled. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jackpot only shook his bald head and didn’t say anything else. It was just like him to make a crack like that and then clam up, leaving you to wonder what the hell he meant.

  “I think he means you ain’t got long to go,” Cash said, half smiling.

  “He don’t know anything about it,” Curly said. But he felt the same way himself. He had felt this way right before Wyatt Earp blasted him nearly to hell with that scattergun. That time he had gone his reckless way as usual, laughing and talking loud to hide the fear in his guts. But this time he didn’t feel like laughing. His world was coming to an end and it was no joking matter. Even if he survived, there wouldn’t be anything left that he cared about.

  “I’ve about had enough of this place,” he said, and went outside, beginning to feel the effects of all the whiskey he had drunk that day. He stopped in the street and looked up at the sky. There were still a few dark clouds and the air was damp and cool, but there was no other sign that it had rained. The thirsty desert had already drunk the water. Soon the wind would be whipping dust along the street again.

  He looked toward the hotel—and there she was, sweeping the veranda. She was wearing a white blouse and a long pleated dark skirt. Her black hair fell over her graceful shoulders as she worked. She seemed more beautiful and desirable than ever, now that he knew she was beyond his reach. He swallowed and felt the painful beating of his heart as he watched her.

  She got to the end of the veranda and paused to glance along the street, lifting her hand to push the hair back from her eyes. She saw Curly and he started to take off his hat, but she turned away as if she hadn’t seen him and went back into the hotel.

  He let his breath out in a ragged sigh and wandered on along the street to the Road to Ruin. There didn’t seem to be anyplace else to go, unless he went back to the Bent Elbow. He couldn’t go to the hotel, and he wasn’t in the mood to go to the restaurant and look at Virgil Duncan’s pictures of zebras. So he entered the Road to Ruin.

  Blondie was behind the bar as usual. Big Ella and Crazy Mary sat at a table, looking listlessly out the window at the empty street. There was no one else in the place, despite the fact that it was Saturday afternoon, the day before Easter. No one in Boot Hill had any money to spend, and few travelers passed through Boot Hill, now that the railroad had gone through farther north, bypassing the dying town.

  Curly stopped at the bar and glanced at his bloodshot eyes and unshaved face in the back-bar mirror, then looked quickly away.

  Blondie poured him a drink and studied his face thoughtfully. “You look like you just lost your only friend,” she said.

  “Maybe I did,” he said, as he raised the glass to his lips and poured the raw whiskey down his throat.

  “Your girl and your only friend, both on the same day. I heard the news.”

  Curly gave her a mean look. “What news?”

  “About her and Ringo. The Hatcher boys said you told them. They’ve been in and out all day, talking and laughing about it.”

  Curly reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. “I should of known they’d tell everyone they saw.”

  “You didn’t think they’d keep something like that to themselves, did you? Such tidbits of gossip are hard to come by in a town this size.”

  “I reckon it don’t matter. It would of got around fast enough anyway.”

  “That Ringo sure is a handsome devil, ain’t he?” Blondie said. “Why ain’t he been in to see us?”

  “Because of Miss Sarah, I guess.”

  “I sure wish I knew her secret,” Blondie said. “Got two handsome men faithful to her, one she won’t even have nothing to do with. You plan to go on saving yourself for her, even after you know about her and Ringo?”

  “Why don’t you shut up?” Curly growled.

  “Don’t blame me,” Blondie said. “I told you she wasn’t for you. Now I guess you know I was right.”

  “I wish to God I’d never seen her,” he said bitterly. “Or you either.”

  Blondie’s face got red. “We can solve that easy enough. Big Ella! Throw him out!”

  Big Ella got ponderously to her feet, smiling. “It’s time we had a little excitement around here,” she said, and started slowly toward Curly.

  He got a good grip on the neck of the bottle. “You better keep the hell away from me, Big Ella.”

  “Better let him alone,” Blondie said. “The mood he’s in, he’s liable to do anything.”

  Big Ella shrugged and sat back down, and Curly put the bottle back on the bar. “You just made a wise decision,” he told Blondie. “I was ready to bust this place up, starting with Big Ella.”

  “Do what you like to Big Ella,” Blondie said, “but leave the furniture alone, unless you want to pay for it. Or work it out, sweeping out the place every day and cleaning the spittoons.” She smiled. “That might be a good job for you, Curly. The rustling business is getting too risky, and you can’t make a living at it anyway. So you better take the job I offered you, before I change my mind.”

  “That’ll be the day,” he said, looking at her in disgust. “Women! All they’ve ever brought me is misery and bad luck.”

  “It’s only that Miss Sarah who’s made you feel that way,” Blondie said. “You didn’t use to. You sure never made such a fool of yourself over me.”

  “I’d be a damn fool if I did. The business you’re in.”

  “She ain’t no different,” Blondie said. “You just think she is. All women have got a price tag. Some of them just keep it hid while they’re trying to catch a man. In the long run she’ll cost Ringo a lot more than a woman like me would.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” Curly said. “It’s plain she come from a fine home and family, but she gave all that up to follow Ringo from town to town and maybe spend a few weeks with him once or twice a year when he ain’t doing anything else. It wouldn’t surprise me if her folks ain’t disowned her because of it, and do you think Ringo is grateful to her for all she’s gone through because of him? Working as a waitress and maybe scrubbing floors and doing anything else she had to, just so she could keep following him around. And I’ll bet he don’t even say goodbye when he rides off and leaves her in some godforsaken little town.”

  “Then she’s a fool too,” Blondie said.

  Curly wiped the back of a hand across his wide flat mouth, brushing the thick black mustache. His high cheekbones stood out in his dark face. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. I’d do the same thing myself to be with her. I’d do anything. Even become a pious hypocrite and go to church every Sunday, if that was what she wanted.”

  “You, in church!” Blondie exclaimed in amazement.

  “I’d sing and say ‘Amen’ louder than anyone.”

  “I’ll bet you would at that,” Blondie said, with an unladylike laugh.

  “You damn right I would,” Curly said, reaching for the bottle to pour himself another drink.

  He nearly spilled the whiskey, because at that very moment he heard the Bishop kid’s piercing whistle down toward the stable. That whistle had become downright alarming, at least to Curly, for he knew Ringo better than anyone else did. He had told Cash that Ringo let things build up inside him until he exploded, but sometimes that point was reached a lot sooner than anyone expected, including Ringo himself. Sometimes other things had already been building up in him for days, things known
only to Ringo, and almost anything could trigger a violent explosion.

  But when Curly looked through the window and saw Ringo stepping into the street from the hotel, his strong brown face looked calm and composed. He showed no sign that he had even heard the boy’s taunting whistle. Curly noticed that he was wearing a different coat, the traditional black frock coat of a professional gambler, which was how he usually made a living—and also how he had acquired that well-known poker face. He strolled across the street toward the general store and was soon out of Curly’s sight.

  “Why does Billy whistle like that every time Ringo leaves the hotel?” Blondie asked.

  “The first time or two he did it to warn the Hatcher boys,” Curly said, still uneasily watching the empty street through the window. “But when he saw Ringo didn’t like it, he started doing it just to annoy him. I think he’s trying to provoke Ringo into a fight. He’s dreaming of himself as the kid who killed the notorious Johnny Ringo. But he’ll never make it.”

  “Cash says he thinks Billy is faster than Ringo,” Big Ella said.

  “Faster or not, Ringo will kill him if they get in a fight,” Curly said.

  He heard one of the Hatcher boys whistle in front of the Bent Elbow, apparently summoning Billy, because a minute later they all came up the street, whistling when they passed the general store where Ringo was.

  Curly swore softly and strode to the batwings, just in time to see Ringo come out of the store, his face swollen with anger and his eyes glittering like ice. Then Ringo’s glance went to the hotel and he started back that way, clearly intending to ignore Billy Bishop and the Hatcher boys. By then they were about twenty feet past the store, walking on up the street with their backs to him.

  But Billy Bishop suddenly stopped and turned around to face Ringo. The Hatcher boys exchanged sly but tense looks and then moved aside to watch from the edge of the street.

  “Billy!” Curly called.

  But the boy gave no sign that he had heard. He kept his back to Curly, watching Ringo. As long as he lived, Curly would see them facing each other there in the narrow wagon-rutted street. Billy was wearing a shapeless old hat and a baggy light-colored shirt that was stained with dirt and sweat, and his straw-colored hair stuck out over his ears. Ringo stood straight and tall in his black hat and coat, perfectly relaxed except for a little tension in his jaws and a tightness around his narrowed eyes.

  “You sure wiped them dogs out quick,” the Bishop kid said. “But dogs can’t shoot back. I’d like to see you try that on me.”

  “Don’t make me kill you, boy,” Ringo said quietly.

  Billy snorted with scorn. “I ain’t scared of you!”

  Ringo didn’t say anything else. He had never been much of a hand for talk, and knew it would do no good now. He just stood there, completely motionless, and watched Billy Bishop with his somber blue eyes. When Billy looked into those cold still eyes, he was gazing into eternity, but he was too green to realize it.

  “I’m fixin’ to kill you right here and now,” the boy said. “Then I reckon folks will know who’s the fastest.”

  Ringo’s eyes got a little colder and remoter and there was a trace of contempt in them. But whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself, as usual. He still stood straight and seemingly relaxed, while the Bishop kid slowly bent into a tense crouch.

  The boy must have realized how ridiculous he appeared in contrast to the seasoned gunfighter, for his face got red and his lips twisted with bitter resentment and he suddenly cried in a trembling voice, “Draw, damn you!”

  As he spoke his gun came up in a silver blur and exploded. But his lead streaked for the sky after Ringo’s bullet had driven him back. The boy died as he crumpled to the ground.

  No one had seen Ringo draw. His hand was literally quicker than the eye.

  He looked at the still body of Billy Bishop for a moment, and then he turned his cold blue eyes on the Hatcher boys. His jaw had the hard murderous look and his chest swelled up with rage.

  Curly held himself tense, watching with tortured eyes. He fully expected to see Ringo turn his gun on the Hatcher boys and blast them all into hell.

  But just then Miss Sarah came out on the hotel veranda with a stricken breathless look on her pale face, and Ringo silently holstered his gun and crossed the street to the hotel, taking her arm and escorting her back inside.

  The Hatcher boys crowded around Billy Bishop, gazing down at him in speechless awe. Curly went toward them and said in a harsh bitter tone, “You sons of bitches! Are you satisfied now?”

  They looked at him blankly, and he roared, “You got him killed! Now bury him!”

  Chapter 17

  Curly was soon back in the Bent Elbow, soaking up more whiskey and wondering where he had gone wrong. It was clear that Ringo no longer saw him as a friend and the only girl he had ever really cared about wouldn’t even look at him. To make matters worse, it had become plain that he had no control over the Hatcher boys. They seemed determined to get themselves killed and there didn’t appear to be anything he could do to stop them.

  After a while he noticed Comanche Joe, the youngest Hatcher, standing at the bar off to his left, wrapped up in thoughts as dark as those of a savage. He didn’t seem any more aware of Curly than Curly had been of him until that moment.

  “Why ain’t you helping them dig that grave?” Curly asked.

  “Why ain’t you?” Comanche Joe grunted, reaching for his glass. He didn’t look at Curly.

  “It wasn’t me got him killed.”

  “Me neither,” Comanche Joe said, his swarthy round face getting hard and stubborn.

  Curly knew more talk would be a waste of time. Comanche Joe never did anything Curly told him to unless it was what he wanted to do. If Curly kept after him about it, he would withdraw into a sulky silence or go off somewhere by himself.

  A moment later Ringo came in through the batwings, and when Curly looked at his hard face and cold eyes he knew the violence was still seething inside him, no matter how quiet and calm he might try to appear. Once you got him in a fighting mood, it wasn’t always so easy to stop him. He might go on the prod for two or three days, itching for a chance to use his guns again. But you could never really tell what Ringo would do. He might let the matter drop, if given a chance.

  He stopped at the bar eight or ten feet to Curly’s right, and Jackpot set a bottle and a tall glass before him. Ringo filled the glass and emptied it.

  “You’re mighty careless about the company you keep, Curly,” he said.

  “Well, I reckon there ain’t as much to pick and choose from as there used to be,” Curly said, surprised at the blunt sarcasm in his tone. “But come to think about it, you never did approve of most of my friends, did you, Ringo?”

  Ringo poured himself another drink, not even bothering to look at the rustler. “I never approved of any of them.”

  “That’s right,” Curly said. “You never would of had anything to do with the Clantons if it hadn’t been for me. You always made them feel like they weren’t in your class.”

  “They weren’t in my class,” Ringo said.

  Comanche Joe looked at Ringo in the back-bar mirror, then spit on the floor.

  Ringo didn’t miss much that went on around him and he didn’t miss that, and he was not in the mood to ignore what amounted to an insult, more instinctive than deliberate, but still an insult. He had already taken all that he intended to take off the Hatcher boys. He suddenly seemed to stand up about a foot taller, his proud head in the air and his jaw thrust out in anger. He stepped out away from the bar and moved toward Comanche Joe until he was about even with Curly. He stood there glaring at the dark youth and said, “Get down and lick it up.”

  For a moment Comanche Joe stood like stone, as if he hadn’t heard. Then he whirled away from the bar and stood cr
ouched, staring back at Ringo with a wildness in his eyes.

  Curly knew what was in the boy’s mind, because he had seen him that way before.

  “Take it easy,” Curly said quietly, moving toward him.

  “Keep out of this, Curly,” Ringo said in a hard tone.

  Curly didn’t take his eyes off Comanche Joe. He saw the wildness flash in the dark eyes, and his right fist shot up and cracked the boy on the jaw, stunning him for a moment. Curly’s left hand grabbed the big Smith & Wesson from the holster and tossed it behind the bar, although he knew it was just as likely that Comanche Joe would have attacked Ringo with his bare hands, and almost as likely that Ringo would have killed him if he had.

  Suddenly the boy turned on Curly, swinging his fist at Curly’s head, Curly ducked and hooked his arm around the other’s body and threw him to the floor.

  “Get out of here, Ringo,” Curly said over his shoulder.

  “Sure,” Ringo said. “Just as soon as he licks it up.”

  “No, there’s already been enough trouble.” Curly pointed his finger at Comanche Joe and said, “Now you stay there, goddammit, or I’m going to lay you out.” Then he turned to face Ringo, standing between him and the Hatcher boy.

  Ringo’s eyes were almost as wild as Comanche Joe’s. “Get out of my way, Curly.”

  Curly shook his head, “Can’t do it. I’ll lay you out too if I have to.”

  Ringo’s jaw clenched. No one talked to him like that. He seemed about ready to hit Curly. Then he remembered his bad arm and began flexing his left hand, the hand he had done most of his fist-fighting with in the past, trying to save his gun hand all he could. A look of bitter frustration and helpless rage twisted his face, and he suddenly whipped up his gun and brought it down on Curly’s head before the big rustler could move.

  Curly saw about a million stars and then reeled into blackness.

  When he came to he was lying on the floor and Comanche Joe was lying unconscious near him. Ringo was gone and the place seemed strangely quiet and deserted.